What happens when

Unlike rolling stones, tile roofs gather a lot of moss. Ours was no exception. So our landlord decided it was time to clean the roof. He hired some guys, and this machine showed up in our yard.

We wondered what would happen when they wanted to move it into the back yard, since the gate in the fence isn't all that wide and the spiral stairs leading to the annex (our separate upstairs storage room) are relatively close to the opening. We came home from work one day to find out they had removed a couple sections of fence.

Now, for those of you who have never been to or lived in Europe, you have to understand how important fences are. Europeans are very private about their property. Every yard is delineated by a fence, often to afford absolute privacy. The fence says, "This is my personal domain and don't even think about violating my space, not even with your eyes." So imagine our chagrin on seeing this:



Yes, our fence is kaput. OK, it was falling down before The Invasion of the Great Machine, but now we've got it propped up on both sides trying to maintain a semblance of privacy and security until the landlord (hopefully) replaces it.

And the roof? Well, it's been de-mossed but whatever solution they used to clean the tiles left a nasty residue on our roof windows. I managed to get one mostly clean yesterday and left the others for another day. I'm not a very good Belgian Hausfrau, I fear.